Lord of Mysteries 2: Circle of Inevitability

As soon as Franca tracked down the source of the traces in the mirror, Lumian immediately grabbed her shoulder and teleported to the location indicated by that scene.

In just two or three seconds, Lumian's figure materialized in a cemetery between mountains, appearing before a gravestone.

Franca had gone somewhere unknown.

Lumian cast his gaze toward the gravestone, seeing a memorial photo embedded in it and a name engraved: "Mocoxidos."

"So you've long been 'dead,' buried in a cemetery. No wonder the two Churches could never find the high-ranking members of the Sick Church, and who knows how you managed to avoid purification or cremation…" Lumian said mockingly while looking at the gravestone.

He had anticipated various methods of contact Dalberro might use, intercepting the corresponding information and establishing connections by placing him in the mirror world.

Before Lumian could finish speaking, the ground in front of the gravestone suddenly exploded with countless pieces of stone and soil.

They shot toward Lumian like bullets fired from a steam rifle, whooshing through the air.

At the same time, Lumian saw a hand.

The hand was entirely cyan in color, swollen to the point of being translucent, with yellowish-green pus flowing inside, making every capillary abnormally clear.

These capillaries and palm lines together formed complex symbols and patterns. Just looking at them made Lumian freeze in place.

At this moment, his field of vision was completely occupied by this hand. Compared to it, the shooting stones and soil seemed as tiny as dust.

Lumian began to tremble, his frost-white, cream-like skin instantly developing deep black spots.

These spots rapidly eroded inward, causing his flesh to quickly rot.

Lumian couldn't move, couldn't use any of his abilities, and even his thoughts were rapidly decaying.

This was no Saint's hand.

This was clearly the left hand of a deity!

Don't look directly at God.

Lumian trembled in fear, his mind sinking into silence, unable to make any effective response, as if destined to walk toward the end of decay.

Everything about him was decaying.

Suddenly, his right palm became scorching hot, bringing an obvious stinging sensation.

Lumian abruptly had an impulse to extend his right hand and touch that left palm, to let the black "pinhole" in his palm touch the other.

This allowed him to barely regain some self-awareness.

However, it was too late.

The shooting stones and soil hit his body, creating ripples and the sound of breaking glass.

Behind Lumian, a hidden mirror revealed itself.

This current Lumian wasn't his true form, but rather a projection manifested through the mirror world!

Of course, Lumian was also nearby. After teleporting to the cemetery, he had concealed himself and thrown out a mirror.

But the impact of directly looking at a "deity" still affected him, severely wounding him, leaving him unable to move or take any measures to dodge.

As the ground's stones and soil quickly weathered, that cyan, terrifying, strange hand pressed against Lumian's projection.

The projection instantly shattered, each illusory fragment rotting and fading.

A series of cracking sounds came from Lumian, who was hiding behind a nearby tree—the sound of all his Mirror Substitutions breaking.

Even with the repeated substitutions of Mirror Substitutions, the black spots and deep decay on Lumian's body persisted.

Just a second or two later, his gaze lost focus, and his living presence disappeared.

Thud!

He fell in a highly decayed state, his Traveler's Bag raising dust from the weathered soil.

He died on the spot.

At this moment, the figure before the gravestone fully appeared.

It was a middle-aged man wearing a black suit without a hat. His face was somewhat long, with rotting spots showing bone on both sides, and his skin was pale, as if it hadn't seen sunlight for a long time.

His left hand hung naturally, its cyan-green swollen state completely different from the rest of his body.

Before Mocoxidos could check the situation, surging, quiet, indifferent gray-white appeared from behind the gravestone, rapidly spreading over.

Wherever the gray-white passed, whether floating dust or weathered ground, everything instantly became solid and heavy, losing all other colors.

Mocoxidos didn't panic, extending his left palm with its yellowish-green capillaries and cyan patterns toward this gray-white expanse.

Though there was no physical contact yet, the gray-white slowed down, becoming increasingly sluggish, even developing cracks within itself.

At this moment, a mirror flew out from the fallen Traveler's Bag.

From that mirror, Lumian, wearing a black robe with the hood down, appeared, walking back to reality with a smile on his lips.

His highland lake-like eyes had already captured Mocoxidos's figure.

Almost simultaneously, two black flames containing destruction and madness leaped from Lumian's pupils.

"Ah!"

Mocoxidos immediately screamed in agony as bursts of black flames erupted from his rotting flesh, both igniting his soul and burning his decaying body composed of various pathogens.

He hurriedly withdrew his left hand and tore open his abdomen, as if trying to pull out the source of the black flames, but this was a Demoness curse—the true source was with Lumian.

Lumian had disappeared, perhaps teleporting to somewhere distant, or perhaps hiding in the mirror world.

As Mocoxidos's left hand collided with the Fire of Destruction, the corresponding black flames began to weaken, flickering as if about to die out.

But the black flames didn't extinguish completely, stubbornly continuing to burn Mocoxidos's flesh and soul, though their intensity began to rapidly decay.

While Mocoxidos dealt with one threat, he couldn't handle the other—the previously suppressed gray-white became surging again, crossing the barriers and spreading to his side.

His clothes quickly took on the gray-white color, turning to stone.

Mocoxidos's body suddenly emitted a putrid aura, with cyan-green yellowish pus oozing from the rotting areas where bone was visible.

This pus instantly covered Mocoxidos's body, causing him to decompose into countless pathogens and disappear on the spot.

Some pathogens were still entangled with black flames and quickly annihilated, but others that weren't originally affected managed to escape the burning of the Fire of Destruction,

At this time, the gray-white color symbolizing Petrification grew more intense, engulfing many pathogens and turning them to stone fragments that drifted to the ground.

Lumian's figure materialized at the side of the gravestone, smiling as he raised his right palm.

Throughout the entire valley cemetery, from sky to earth, strange and quiet black flames ignited silently.

In this black flame hell, every tree and blade of grass withered, collapsing as the surviving pathogens around the gravestone lost their spirituality and life one by one.

After about seven seconds, Lumian heard a shrill, unwilling, ethereal, cursing scream in the air.

From this, he knew Mocoxidos had completely died.

And due to the burning of a Demoness's black flames, the other's spirit would completely dissipate in the next few dozen seconds, unable to channel his spirit or do anything else through those means.

Lumian flipped his hand, using the mirror to pull the area around the gravestone and Mocoxidos's spirit into the mirror world, thereby affecting the return of the boon powers.

He and Franca then crossed through the silver mirror surface, arriving in the corresponding area behind the mirror.

During this process, Lumian couldn't help but reflect on the recent battle.

Mocoxidos's performance had exceeded both his and Franca's expectations.

That cyan-green swollen left hand was like one belonging to a true deity—merely seeing it and being pressed by it from afar completely crushed Lumian's resistance, making even dodging impossible.

This definitely surpassed Sequence 3, reaching the power level of an Angel, perhaps even higher!

Most Sequence 3 Saints from other paths would have died irreversibly facing that attack just now. Fortunately, Lumian was a Demoness of Unaging, peculiarly difficult to kill and skilled in revival and rebirth.

Moreover, other Demoness of Unaging couldn't manage this so easily—they would likely have their normal Mirror Person die along with them, only able to revive through a pre-placed mirror in a hidden location, largely disconnected from themselves, containing a sleeping Mirror Person. This would take dozens of minutes or even hours, making further participation in this battle impossible.

Lumian had something special in his right palm, and thanks to the stimulated residual aura of the mutated Blood Emperor, he managed to break free from that left hand's influence slightly earlier to some extent, actively using Mirror Substitution.

Even so, all his Mirror Substitutions were destroyed, and his true form had to die once, though it didn't affect his self in the mirror.

If not for Franca's assistance and containment, Mocoxidos would have escaped before he could revive and return.

That left hand was indeed formidable, with a terrifying divine descent quality…

But aside from the left hand, Mocoxidos's other aspects seemed quite ordinary, even inferior to the Sequence 4 demigod of the same path I killed before…

Did the existence of that 'left hand' suppress the manifestation of Mocoxidos's other abilities, causing his thinking and reactions to decay to some extent?

Since Amon could modify the ability manifestations of various sequences in the Marauder pathway, surely the great existence using 'Malady God' as an alias can do the same. When bestowing power, He deliberately adjusted the sequence abilities, lowering the rank of His own or a left hand projection of some Angel near the divine throne to Sequence 3, but had to reduce other abilities as a result and make the bestowed pay an additional price?

As these thoughts flashed through Lumian's mind, he glanced at Franca and took out his Chariot card and The Fool's Sacred Emblem.

For the upcoming theft and manipulation, they would definitely need to beseech Mr. Fool's help!

Lumian himself didn't have such abilities. If he could control Mocoxidos and have enough time to use large-scale black magic, using this Saint as a medium to slowly establish contact with all Malady God believers, he might barely be able to take over the Sick Church by himself, but now, less than thirty seconds remained.